New Delhi: Cricket has found a new cause in the national capital ahead of the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Fifteen leading artists Friday unveiled their "bat art" in support of the Delhi Daredevils franchise by flagging off a "Batting for Art...Khelo Front Foot Se" public installation project.

The project, a joint promotional campaign by the Delhi Daredevils and Arts4All private arts platform, has brought cricket and art under one umbrella to raise awareness about Indian contemporary art and carry it to wider crosssections of people as a commercial enterprise.

Painted on giant wooden bats in bright colours, the public installations that will be displayed at the venues where the team will play, at Terminal-3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport and at public venues where they will draw maximum viewers, co-curator of the project Archana Bahl Sapra of Arts4All, said.

The collection will also be exhibited at the marquee at the Ferozshah Kotla Stadium here where the Delhi Daredevils play their home games. The month-long IPL-6 begins April 3. The roster of artists who unveiled the cricket art represent the regions where the Delhi Daredevils will play their matches.They include Paresh Maity, Jayasri Burman, Chintan Updhayay, Sanjay Bhattacharya, Thota Vaikuntam, Seema Kohli, Neeraj Goswami, Farhad Husain, Yusuf Arakkal, Kachan Chander, Khem Vaishnav, Binoy Verghese, Dileep Sharma and Satish Gupta.

"The idea germinated two years ago. We had begun Arts4All with small residencies inviting young artists from the smaller towns to work and train the capital. But we realized that we required money to pay for their travel. We came upon the IPL team by chance and decided to merge the two fields. We want the price art works between Rs.300,000 and Rs.500,000," Sapra told media.

Like sports, art challenges boundaries - of the body as well as the mind and its creative instincts, Sapra said. "It is this inextricable intertwining and dynamic play that the exhibition seeks to explore. The artists were invited to create a new language in their distinctive signature styles to turn lines, forms and colors into playing fields," the co-curator explained.

The imageries were a contrast to the bats - the medium. Inspired by Indian mythology, traditions and lifestyles, the artists interpreted anecdotes from Krishna Leela, Ramayana, lifestyles, nature, ethnic iconography and Indian figurative motifs to bring out the synergy between the culture of cricket and the Indian way of life.

Both are reflections of a certain culture, said Mumbai-based artist Chintan Upadhayay. "The idea was exciting to me. Cricket is something everybody is attached to - it is entertainment. For me, it is a cultural phenomenon. The pace of the game has game has picked up. The test matches have lost their popularity. The T20 matches represent the fast-growing economy," Upadhyay told media. His iconic metaphor Chintu - a naked male child which Upadhayay uses recurrently - represents the new India" in his bat art.

"I was talking about the new Indian rich and Chintu represents them," he said, adding that "both modern art and cricket were characterised by aggression and creativity". For artists Seema Kohli and Jayasri Burman, the bat drew parallels with Lord Krishna's childhood sport with the ball and lore from Ramayana respectively.

"When I saw the scroll-like bat, I immediately wanted to tell a story because I paint on visual narratives on panels. Ramayana was a spontaneous decision," artist Jayasri Burman told media. Art and cricket connect well because "the fine of art of cricket and Indian aesthetics are very creative today", artist Paresh Maity said.

"It is wonderful to sort out over boundary and boundary. It is a very exciting game - you have focused easily and as an artist I can transform anything into a piece of art. The project is an example how a cricket bat can become a piece of multi-dimensional art," Maity told media.

The artist said "the scope of contemporary art was changing and was growing everyday". "Art cannot remain confined to a piece of paper. In time, it will go to different dimensions and become completely public," Maity said.

The project will connect to other IPL teams as well, co-curator Sapra said.